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Nirmal Verma, PhD

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Office:859-562-0460; Lab: 859-218-0295
nve224@uky.edu
900 S. Limestone, Office: CTW 588, Lab: CTW 461

Positions

  • Assistant Professor, Research Title

College Unit(s)

Other Affiliation(s)
  • Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences Primary Faculty

Biography and Education

Biography

Our work involves the pathological role of diabetes-associated hyperamylinemia (amylin oversecretion) in the pancreas, heart, brain, and kidney. I work in collaboration with Dr. Florin Despa, a well-established scientist in amylin research. 

Funding:

American Heart Association Career Development Grant (PI: ROLE OF DIABETES-ASSOCIATED HYPERAMYLINEMIA IN STROKE) 2024-2027

Alzheimers Association (CO-I: Role of APOE in Diabetes-Related Risk for AD) 2025-2028

Education

2008-2013: Ph.D, Life Sciences, SLS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

2013-2018: Post-doctoral Scholar, Dept. Of Pharmacology, University of Kentucky, USA

2018-2020: Scientist one, Dept. Of Pharmacology, University of Kentucky, USA

2020-: Assistant Professor, Research title, Dept. Of Pharmacology, University of Kentucky, USA

Selected Publications

  1. Velmurugan, S., Pandey, V.K., Verma, N. et al. Cardiac remodelling, recognition memory deficits and accelerated ageing in a rat model of gestational diabetes. Diabetologia (2025).

  2. Leibold, N. S., Kotiya, D., Verma, N. and Despa, F. (2025). Detection of Amylin-尾-amyloid Hetero-Oligomers by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay. Bio-protocol 15(3): e5179. DOI: .

  3. Saurav Das, Nirmal Verma, Larry B. Goldstein, Florin Despa. Skin capillary amylin deposition resembles brain amylin vasculopathy in rats. Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Volume 32, Issue 9,107300 (2023)
  4. Kotiya, D., Leibold, N., Verma, N., Jicha, G. A., Goldstein, L. B., & Despa, F. Rapid, scalable assay of amylin-尾 amyloid co-aggregation in brain tissue and blood. The Journal of biological chemistry, 104682. Advanced online publication. (2023)
  5. Verma, N., & Despa, F.  The association between renal accumulation of pancreatic amyloid-forming amylin and renal hypoxia. Frontiers in endocrinology, 14, 1104662. (2023)
  6. Verma, N., Velmurugan, G.V., Winford, E. et al. A尾 efflux impairment and inflammation linked to cerebrovascular accumulation of amyloid-forming amylin secreted from the pancreas. Nature Commun Biol 6, 2 (2023).
  7. Nirmal Verma, Sarah Srodulski, Sathya Velmurugan, Amanda Hoskins, Florin Despa, Sanda Despa. Gestational diabetes triggers postpartum cardiac hypertrophy in rats via activation of calcineurin/NFAT signaling. Nature Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 22;11(1):20926. (2021)
  8. Han Ly, Nirmal Verma, Savita Sharma, Deepak Kotiya, Sanda Despa, Erin L. Abner, Peter T. Nelson, Gregory A. Jicha, Donna M. Wilcock, Larry B. Goldstein, Rita Guerreiro, Jos茅 Br谩s, Angela J. Hanson, Suzanne Craft, Andrew J. Murray, Geert Jan Biessels, Claire Troakes, Henrik Zetterberg, John Hardy, Tammaryn Lashley, AESG21 and Florin Despa. The association of circulating amylin with 尾-amyloid in familial Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.  Alzheimer鈥檚 Dement. (2021)
  9. Nirmal Verma, Florin Despa. Contributing Factors to Diabetic Brain Injury and Cognitive Decline. Diabetes Metab J. 2019 Oct; 43(5): 560-567. (2019)
  10. Nirmal Verma, Miao Liu, Han Ly, Analia Loria, Kenneth S. Campbell, Heather Bush, Philip   A. Kern, Pedro A. Jose, Heinrich Taegtmeyer, Donald M. Bers, Sanda Despa, Larry B. Goldstein, Andrew J. Murray and Florin Despa. Diabetic Microcirculatory Disturbances and Pathologic Erythropoiesis Provoked by Deposition of Amyloid-Forming Amylin in Red Blood Cells and Capillaries Kidney Int. 2020 Jan; 97(1): 143-155. (2020)
  11. Liu M, Hoskins A, Verma N, Bers DM, Despa S, Despa F. Amylin and diabetic cardiomyopathy - amylin-induced sarcolemmal Ca2+ leak is independent of diabetic remodeling of myocardium. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2017 Oct 21. (2017)
  12. H Ly, N Verma, F Wu, M Liu, KE Saatman, PT Nelson, JT Slevin, Brain microvascular injury and white matter disease provoked by diabetes鈥恆ssociated hyperamylinemia. Annals of Neurology, 2017 Aug;82(2):208-222. (2017)
  13. Liu M, Verma N, Peng X, Srodulski S, Morris A, Chow M, Hersh LB, Chen J, Zhu H, Netea MG, Margulies KB, Despa S, Despa F. Hyperamylinemia Increases IL-1尾 Synthesis in the Heart via Peroxidative Sarcolemmal Injury. Diabetes. 2016 Sep;65(9):2772-83. (2016)
  14. Verma N, Ly H, Liu M, Chen J, Zhu H, Chow M, Hersh LB, Despa F. Intraneuronal Amylin Deposition, Peroxidative Membrane Injury and Increased IL-1尾 Synthesis in Brains of Alzheimer's Disease Patients with Type-2 Diabetes and in Diabetic HIP Rats. J Alzheimers Dis. 2016 May 5;53(1):259-72. (2016)
  15. Guan H, Chow KM, Song E, Verma N, Despa F, Hersh LB. The Mitochondrial Peptidase Pitrilysin Degrades Islet Amyloid Polypeptide in Beta-Cells. PLoS One. 2015;10(7):e0133263. (2015)